A man who spent 10 years in prison just won $15,000 in a national business pitch competition

Norris reacts to winning
the Defy Ventures national pitch competition, on November
13.Chris Weller/Business
Insider

Curtis Norris, the founder and CEO of Metro Mobile
Power Washing, recently won $15,000 in Defy Ventures' national
pitch competition.

Defy helps people who are currently or were formerly
incarcerated start and grow businesses.

Norris told Business Insider he'll use the money to buy
equipment.

Curtis Norris is 67 years old, but his business career is just
beginning.

Norris recently won $15,000 in a national business pitch
competition put on by Defy
Ventures, a nonprofit that helps formerly and currently
incarcerated individuals start and grow their own businesses.

Norris, who served 10 years in a California state prison between
2003 and 2013, won for his mobile power-washing company over five
fellow entrepreneurs in training, or EITs, in the November 13
competition in New York City.Norris pitches the Defy
executives on Metro Mobile Power Washing.Chris Weller/Business Insider

Defy Ventures helps inmates regain financial independence

"The word that I would use is just 'wonderful,'" Norris told
Business Insider. "It's wonderful to win. All of this has been
worth it now, everything I went through, because this is my last
one."

Norris is referring to Defy's ladder of pitch competitions. Built
in the style of "Shark Tank," each competition involves EITs
giving seasoned business executives, typically in the world of
finance or venture capital, short pitches about their business.
At the end, the executives rate the pitch, ask questions, and
offer feedback.

Catherine Hoke, Defy's founder and CEO, started the organization
in 2010 as a way for inmates to harness their natural
sense of hustle and repurpose it as business savvy. To date, Defy
has worked with more than 3,600 EITs and recruited roughly 4,400
executives. Inmates who go through the program have a 95%
employment rate and 3.2% recidivism rate. The national rate is
nearly 68% after three years post-release.

Norris first participated in a Defy pitch contest in 2016, then
another earlier this year, and finally the latest one, which was
the first national competition Defy has held since it began
mentoring EITs in 2012.

As one of Defy's EITs, Norris has been working with an executive
mentor to grow the business, earning different colored "belts," a
nod to the rankings of martial arts, each time he hits a
milestone set by his mentor. The belts signify EITs (and their
companies) are progressing through the Defy system. The first
belt — the white belt — is the CEO of Your Own Life program,
where Defy mentors people still imprisoned.

Norris is a brown belt and hopes to soon become the second-ever
black belt. So far Coss Marte, the founder and CEO of the
prison-style bootcamp workout ConBody, is the only one to have
reached black-belt status.

Norris celebrates after
learning he won the national competition.Chris Weller/Business Insider

A hobby in the 1990s turns into a business in the late 2010s

Norris started his own business, Metro Mobile Power Washing,
after a Defy worker came to his halfway house in November of
2015. He'd been working in the power-washing business since the
1990s, but initially wanted his Defy business to involve
furniture restoration. His mentor told him the insurance
liabilities would be too great.

"And I said what else can I do?" Norris recalled. He soon
remembered his background in blasting the grime off gas stations
and restaurant facades. "So I said OK, I'm going to start power
washing and pressure-washing."

In the two years he's been in business, Norris has pulled in
$17,000 in revenue and hired two part-time employees (one of whom
is his current girlfriend, who helps with "this and that," Norris
said). He projects he'll be able to pull in $135,000 for 2018,
provided he can start growing his client base and handle larger
projects, like aging or repurposed shopping malls. He said he
plans to use the prize money to buy equipment, instead of
renting.

As for his involvement with Defy now that he's outgrown the
competitions, Norris said that bond is for life.

"My plans for Defy are going to be continuing, period," he said,
pointing to the handful of fellow Defy members, many of them
young, who also hail from the San Francisco Bay Area. "That's
something I'm going to do. I've got to pass it on."